It's been a year! Ups and downs and now mostly ups. I'm down 40 lbs....only 80 lbs more to no longer be morbidly obese I am eating a well-balanced menu everyday. For 8 months I was on a very restrictive glycemic index diet. I'm working through Weight Watchers now - using what I've learned from the GI diet - and combined with 3 days of simple weight training and intense elliptical workouts, the pounds are disappearing.

This weekend I did a test walk of the Ptree. Total mileage of 13.2 kilometers in just under 2 hours at a very easy pace. I'm still doing a bit of running on the trails - 1 minute running and 2 minutes walking - but I'm concentrating more on getting my endurance up and the pounds off. Hopefully in August I will really start with the run/walking. I just signed up for Pensacola's half in November. I'm confident I can get the 13.1 in under 3 hours.

Anyway, great year. Lots of change. A lot more change coming. Next year this time, I'll be running thru the entire Ptree!

So I have meetings every night this week and can't do my work out in the evenings. I set my alarm for 5:30 this morning planning to get up and head to the track for another 15min walk / 3min run attempt. It's amazing how the negative tapes of school mates chiding you can still come through loud and clear. I stayed in bed for a while listing all the reasons it was stupid to get out of bed. PE and especially the track were my nightmares in middle and high school. I always seemed to be the new kid in school and I was extremely introverted so that put me on a lower rung to start with. But add an extra 100 pounds to the equation and, boom, a perfect target for kids who really didn't know any better. I thought I had put all that behind me years ago. This morning, the voices were there. Loud and clear. They kept up in the car driving to the track. They finally disappeared somewhere in the second lap when I made the second 1 minute jog completely without much strain.

I did the same walk/jog as Monday. The schedule has me going up each day but being 150lbs overweight, I want to take it slow and be as gentle as I can on my bod. I figure when I can do the 15/3 walk/jog fairly effortlessly, then I'll move to doing the training schedule. I expected it would take a few weeks to get to that point, but this morning, I shortened my stride both for the walk and the jog, slowed things down a tad, and did just fine with the jogging. Two days ago I barely got 30 seconds in each jog time. This morning I went over the 1 minute mark by a few seconds each time. I'll do the same in the morning and then I have a few days of 'off' when I'll be on the elliptical and doing bands. Next week, I'll stick with the progressive schedule.

My main concern, and the one of the reasons I never attempted this in the past, is my knees. I've not had any problems with them - which is a small miracle having been 150+overweight for 20 years. I've read a lot of warnings about how a person needs to be at near-ideal weight before starting a running program because of the impact damage to the knees. From the posts I've read on the boards here, seems there are ways to safely run when so overweight and not do damage. That's my goal.

I'm morbidly obese so I'm starting with a slower program than C25K. I hope to be able to start C25K in about six weeks. Yesterday I 'ran' my first steps since I was a teenager. I was to easy jog 1 minute for every 5 minutes of vigorous walking (total of 18 minutes). I managed to pull out 33 seconds of jogging for every 5.5 minutes of walking. But I started! I've read Galloway's beginning running book so I'm hoping my form is okay. Tomorrow I hope to make it for the full minute increments.